


Up Yours, Darling

by butt_muncher_seven



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Canada, Enemies to Lovers, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Modern Era, Paranormal AU, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, a stranger comes to town, actually that's a pretty fucking low bar it'll be better than that, although honestly y'all just wanna see em fuk so does it really matter, content warning for canadian things, definitely more, expect the accuracy of your standard mid-range procedural, lots of cops, ooh what other good tropes let's see, over the top badassery, period-typical homophobia? I don't know her
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 21:23:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12802665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butt_muncher_seven/pseuds/butt_muncher_seven
Summary: Officer Kaidan just wants a nice, peaceful life out in the backwoods of British Columbia. At least, he's pretty sure that's what he wants.But then several heavily armed strangers chasing a mystery show up and the world might be ending, so he'll have to deal with that. One of them's pretty good-looking, but also American. What's a good Canadian boy to do?





	Up Yours, Darling

**Author's Note:**

> I always loved that Kaidan was from (future) Vancouver so I thought I’d just set a whole fic where I live. Human versions of a lot of characters will be showing up, which can be a fraught transition. Please let me know if I fuck anything up.

Kaidan was surprised to see that drunk old Peter had been right: there was a heavily armed trespasser on his property. It wasn’t quite the right season for poachers – Penticton usually saw its share of those earlier in the year – but he’d learned very early on in his career in law enforcement to never underestimate the stupidity of anyone he had to interact with. 

The man was around his age, clean cut and wearing backwoods clothing that was a little too crisp to belong to a seasoned hunter. It was hard to see from the angle, facing away from him, but it looked like the poacher had a thick scar on his temple. None of the details were adding up perfectly to a particular class of perpetrator, but _horses, not zebras,_ he reminded himself. Real surprises were hard to come by after a decade of police work. Kaidan steeled himself to deal with any combination of drunk, aggressive and entitled.

“Sir, turn around and lower the weapon.” He kept his tone level and authoritative. “My name is Officer Kaidan. Do you mind telling me what you’re doing out here?”

The man started, cursing slightly under his breath. Ruefully he put his hands in the air and turned to face Kaidan.

Kaidan had not prepared himself for the man to be quite so attractive. He held his expression neutral, but the twist in the poacher’s gaze made him think that he’d let something slip. He rested a hand on his sidearm, just so he didn't get any ideas. 

“I’m just putting my gun down, okay?” The poacher said in an equally level and authoritative voice as he bent to gently lay his rifle on the dry ground. A high-quality earpiece lead into his plaid jacket collar. “It’s okay, I’m an officer as well.”

 _Well that was news._

Kaidan relaxed slightly – that was a plausible explanation for an increasingly odd interaction.

“What district are you from?” Kaidan asked. The man was walking calmly towards him, bringing their separating distance up from ‘within speaking range’ to ‘conversational.’ His hands were raised but in a relaxed manner. 

“Kaleden.” He answered calmly. They were now face to face. Kaidan froze. Kaleden had been folded into the Penticton police district a few months ago; he knew every officer stationed there. Whoever the hell this guy was, it wasn't police.

He moved quickly but the strike was already coming. Before he knew it the man had his right wrist in a vice-like grip, forcing his hand away from his gun. His other hand struck Kaidan hard in the face. It hadn’t been that long since the last time Kaidan was sucker punched but _fuck_ this guy hit hard. Kaidan blindly kneed his assailant hard in the crotch, shoved him back when he flinched, and stepped back to draw his weapon.

“Stand back.” Something like respect glimmered in the man’s eyes as he sized Kaidan up. 

“Hands above your head.” The man complied, still watching Kaidan hard. There was something intense and dangerous in his gaze and it wasn’t just ‘willingness to punch a cop.’ He didn’t even look angry just – very, _very_ alert. Kaidan tried not to be unnerved. He was the one with the gun. He was in control of the situation.

It seemed like a bad sign that he had to convince himself of that.

“We’re going to head back to the station. Do you see my patrol car over there?”

The man nodded slightly.

“Walk.” He did. Kaidan followed a couple meters back, nerves amped up to eleven.

When they reached the car Kaidan ordered him to put his hands on the hood. He handcuffed him quickly, still apprehensive. When the man shifted as though to resist he shoved him hard onto the hood, pinning him with his body as he finished the job.

A note on policing: on the whole it wasn’t as sexy as TV had made it seem. Occasionally it was nearly as glamorous, but generally the people he dealt with weren’t nubile young vixens in need of assistance. A colleague of his had likened it to a live drawing class she'd taken: plenty of nudity and very little eroticism. Generally he found himself wishing people had more clothes on. 

But when Kaidan slammed the man into the car, a faint but undeniable shiver ran through the man, somehow the hottest thing he'd encountered in 15 years of work. Kaidan felt that shiver in the marrow of his bones.

Pat down checks were usually similarly dull work. It was a job, no matter how hot the suspect was. Occasionally people he was checking over – usually women and usually drunk – would try to make it lewd. He hated it. They usually played it off as a joke, and some of his shittier partners followed suit. 

The man did nothing inappropriate as Kaidan felt him up for weapons (of which he found several.) He didn’t arch into his hands or giggle when Kaidan reached his crotch, he didn't say anything gross. He didn’t even speak. And yet. There was a tension between them that had Kaidan feeling like a dog in heat. He carefully did precisely what he'd been taught in police academy and not a touch more.

He opened the car door to admit the man, hand ready to assist him on the relatively awkward act of ducking with one’s hands tied behind ones back. He needn’t have bothered. The man moved, as before, with a muscular grace. _Predatory,_ his mind supplied as he closed the door on him. 

Kaidan phoned the incident in as he stumped over to where the man had dropped his gun, realizing as he did so that he’d never gotten the man’s name. _He’d probably have lied about it anyway,_ he told himself, frustrated over his poor performance. _He wasn’t some dumbass teenager fresh out of the academy, dammit_. The rifle, when he retrieved it, was state of the art. This, unlike the man’s ‘totally normal hunter, nothing to see here’ disguise, showed clear signs of use and care. It also showed signs of illegal modifications everywhere – fully automatic, magazine extended, the works. A killer’s gun. 

Kaidan’s mind was racing. Gangs were present in Penticton but hardly prolific. Drug dealers were small time around here – there was far better money to be had among the miners up north. So far as he knew Drunk Pete had no reason to attract hired killers, nothing was in the hills except lumber and deer. And yet here was a man, able to calmly punch a cop, armed to the teeth, presumably in contact with others, and extremely, extremely good-looking. 

When Kaidan returned to the car, he asked the man what his name was,

“Shepard.” He laughed. “Commander Jake Shepard, at your service.”

“What district are you from?” Kaidan asked, all sincerity. Shepard didn’t seem dumb enough to just talk to him, but again. You’d be surprised.

“Tillamook. Oregon.”

“You’re a ways from home, Shepard. What brings you out here?” Kaidan kept an eye on him in the rear view mirror. He seemed relaxed, jovial even, but something about it seemed forced.

“Well,” Shepard sighed ruefully. “That’s a bit of a story. Not a highly credible one, either.”

Kaidan noted some other vehicles catching up behind them and immediately slowing to match their pace. He smirked. The roads were narrow and bendy enough that his department was very vigilant about issuing speeding tickets. Cars tended to slow dramatically whenever they caught sight of his squad car. 

“We’ve got some time, Shepard. Only one way to find out if I believe you.”

Shepard seemed to mull it over. “Have you noticed anything odd lately? Lights in the sky, animals dying strangely, people where they shouldn’t be?”

“Besides you, you mean?” Shepard gave him a look. Kaidan found himself laughing in spite of himself. This guy was guilty of something six ways til Sunday, but he was lucid and in possession of decent comedic timing and Kaidan let himself enjoy that. It was the little things, after all. He’d be dealing with enough angry drunkards later to make up for it.

“No, nothing unusual.”

“Not that you’d tell me if there were.”

“Not that I’d tell you if there were.” Kaidan agreed affably. 

“There was – a string of murders, nasty ones. Unexplained disappearances.” Shepard paused, seeming genuinely conflicted. “The investigation didn’t end well.”

Kaidan was listening intently, weighing each word he said, looking for a thread to pull on. _Lights in the sky_ said crazy, but everything else was reading unusually sane. The van behind them, clearly annoyed at having to go so slowly, was taking advantage of a straight patch in the road to pass them. He briefly considered throwing his lights on, but decided against it. Leaving Shepard unattended, even in chains, seemed unwise.

“How did it not end well?”

“Hmm?”

For the second time that day, Kaidan’s gut dropped as he realized a crucial detail. Shepard wasn’t paying attention to him; he was focused on the van in front of them. The van that wasn’t speeding away but instead keeping perfect pace ahead of them. 

He looked for a broad shoulder, anything that wasn’t cliff, but it was too late – the van ahead of them was screeching to a halt and he had to slam on the brakes. They narrowly avoided a collision. The massive pick-up behind them slid to an easy halt at an angle that effectively blocked exit to the rear or right side. The left was a scant meter of rock before a very high drop.

Kaidan grabbed his gun and rapidly assessed the situation. The pickup looked substantial – probably better to ram the van. He geared up, but couldn’t get moving before heavily armed men leapt out of both vehicles. _Shit._


End file.
